After Hevesi Ordeal, Officials Struggle With Travel Rules

By SAM ROBERTS

Published: January 8, 2007

One public official left her city car, driver and bodyguard in the city and hired a car service to take her to visit a friend in northern Westchester, and got lost. Two days later, the city car, driver and bodyguard arrived to take her from the friend's home to Albany for the governor's inauguration.

Another city official drove himself in his own car to the inauguration, where he met up with the New York City police security detail assigned to guard him.

After the scandal over State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi's use of an official car and driver for his ailing wife, public officials are grappling with travel policies that are ambiguous at best and further complicated by concerns about security.

Should officials who are assigned a police bodyguard in the city also get a car and driver when they go out of town? If an official is traveling between government events and detours, say, to buy lox, must he switch to his own car or take public transportation to get to the store? If he uses the city car, should he reimburse the city for the extra mileage and, if so, should he pay only for the fuel or for what it would have cost for a cab or private car service?

The problem isn't new. In the 1980s, one commissioner who surreptitiously lived outside the city was said to have been chauffeured to the Nassau County line, where he discreetly shifted to his private car and drove himself home.

But the investigation of Mr. Hevesi, who resigned last month and pleaded guilty to defrauding the government, has changed the rules, or at least, called attention to them. The city's top four elected officials have asked the Conflicts of Interest Board for clarification.

Lawyers for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, urged the board to issue a formal opinion and to provide guidance in the interim. The lawyers, who were also writing on behalf of the public advocate and the comptroller, wrote to the board after the Hevesi case prompted articles in The New York Post and elsewhere about how city officials deal with personal travel.

''Unfortunately, while elected officials want to adhere to the highest standards, New York City does not have an explicit and consistent set of guidelines governing this area,'' they wrote in November.

A spokesman for the board said ''there is a general prohibition against using city resources for noncity purposes'' with exceptions for ''de minimis,'' or negligible, occasions. But he agreed that ''the application of that rule and the exceptions are nowhere spelled out.''

The board is beginning to review the issue, seeking guidance from other government jurisdictions. The precedents are few. The city comptroller's most requested directive, on travel, meals and lodging, numbers 75 pages but does not get into specifics on ethics.

In avoiding specific regulations on personal travel for so many years, the conflicts board hoped officials would be guided by common sense rather than by incomprehensible or unenforceable regulations that might create logistical nightmares instead of avoiding misuse of government property.

Moreover, promulgating guidelines across the board may prove difficult because officials are provided with varying levels of security, as determined by the Police Department.

The mayor and speaker have bodyguards and police drivers. The public advocate and comptroller have bodyguards assigned to them, but usually civilian drivers.

According to a 1997 opinion by the city's Law Department, officials who use vehicles for campaign purposes are supposed to reimburse the city. During the 2005 mayoral race, the Bloomberg campaign paid the Police Department the cost for the use of his official van, which was estimated at thousands of dollars a month.

''That way, there were no questions,'' said his press secretary, Stu Loeser.

Mr. Bloomberg has not reimbursed the city for using the vehicle or police detail for personal travel, Mr. Loeser said, because he is complying with security requirements imposed by the police. ''Security is security,'' Mr. Loeser said.

In 2005 and again last year through September, Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. reimbursed the city a total of about $44,689 from campaign funds for the use of his official car (typically, for an average of five hours and 100 miles a week).

''In the absence of any clear regulation, it was better to err on the side of overpaying,'' he said.

''You're not going to take the car on vacation,'' said Mr. Thompson, who drove himself to Albany last week for the inauguration, ''but if you're going from one stop to another -- you make a stop at Starbucks, or stop at Macy's to buy a pair of socks -- you try to let common sense dictate what you're going to do.''

Maria Alvarado, a spokeswoman for Ms. Quinn, said the Council speaker would soon reimburse the city probably ''hundreds of dollars'' for private use of her city vehicle and would make regular payments twice a year in the future.

Ms. Alvarado said that bodyguards occasionally accompany Ms. Quinn outside the city, including trips to a beach house on the Jersey Shore, but ''that is determined case by case based on security.''

Betsy Gotbaum, the public advocate, and her husband, Victor, a former municipal labor leader, do not own a car. She said they typically rent a vehicle, use a car service, or take a train or a jitney on trips out of town, as she did last month when she traveled to Westchester to visit her friend (this reporter).

Ms. Gotbaum recently reimbursed the city for a total of $4,280 through 2005 for personal and political trips (from her personal and campaign funds, respectively) in the city car. Some of the payments for personal trips were made after the Post articles were published.

Her spokesman, Frank Sobrino, said he did not envy the challenge confronting the conflicts board. ''How do you put a price tag -- that this personal trip was one and a half miles off the route to the next event, as opposed to three-quarter miles, which is acceptable?

''A lot of officials would embrace some specificity,'' Mr. Sobrino said, ''so we won't be afraid of any of the 'gotcha' stories.''

Ms. Gotbaum said, ''Tell me what the standard is and I'll always adhere to it.''

The request to the conflicts board was also made on behalf of the borough presidents and district attorneys.

Eric Pugatch, a spokesman for Scott M. Stringer, who just finished his first year as the Manhattan borough president, said, ''our office keeps regular record of the borough president's time and assesses if any reimbursement is required on an annual basis.''

In coordination with the board, he said, ''We are in the process of determining if any reimbursement is appropriate and, if so, how much it would be for.''

Few jurisdictions are as specific as Wisconsin, where the attorney general was fined several years ago for commuting in her official car.

''The rule is drivers are not permitted to use state vehicles for personal purposes, and it's probably important not to get too distracted on the pages of exceptions,'' said Roth Judd, director of the Wisconsin Ethics Board.

Incidental stops -- at a restaurant or a gas station -- are allowed, Wisconsin regulations say, but not at liquor stores or other places that the public might deem inappropriate.

Photos: City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr., sitting at top, and Betsy Gotbaum, the public advocate, have reimbursed the city for auto use. (Photo by Uli Seit for The New York Times); (Photo by James Estrin/The New York Times)